The Elder Scrolls Online console release delayed

Bethesda's ambitious The Elder Scrolls Online MMORPG, having been savaged by critics as dull and derivative on PC, is to have its console launch delayed by six months.

Bethesda has confirmed that it is delaying the launch of its massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) The Elder Scrolls Online by six months, while the PC version receives critical reviews.

The first MMORPG to be set in the Elder Scrolls universe, ESO was to be Bethesda's biggest project ever. Sadly, as our review shows, the game is likely far too bland to interest gamers who are already tied in to rival MMO titles and yet also to capture the interest of those who have grown up on the company's single-player games. With a considerable amount of money sunk into its development and hosting, that's a problem for Bethesda - and the console ports of the game are causing the company even more headaches.

'We continue to work on the console versions of ESO, and game development has been progressing steadily, but we are still working to solve a series of unique problems specific to those platforms,' the company has confirmed in an unattributed statement to fans. 'Integrating our systems with each console manufacturer’s networks — which are both different from the PC/Mac system as well as different from each other—has been a challenging process. It has become clear that our planned June release of the console versions isn’t going to be possible. Though we have made great progress, we have concluded that we’ll need about six months to ensure we deliver the experience our fans expect and deserve.'

That delay will push the Xbox One and PS4 launch of the title back to December, but Bethesda promises to make it right with a special offer: buy the PC release of the game now, and add a console version of the game at launch for an extra $20 - including 30 days of paid game time. Characters created on the PC version will be able to be transferred to the console releases, too, meaning no progress will be lost.

'Whether you decide to take advantage of this offer or not, we promise to do everything we can to get the game released on both consoles as quickly as we can,' the company added. 'We will keep everyone updated with additional details regarding character transfers, specific offer dates, when you can expect console beta to start, and of course, when ESO on consoles will launch.'